Peter Robinson: When the Music's Over

Gervaise and McLaughlin laughed. ‘Welcome to the real world,’ said the latter. ‘Shall we go in?’

McLaughlin went ahead. Banks turned to Gervaise and whispered, ‘Any idea what this is about?’

She gave a quick shake of her head. ‘Very hush-hush,’ she said. ‘Rumour has it that the chief constable himself is going to be here.’

‘Not crime stats or more budget cuts, then?’

Gervaise smiled. ‘Somehow, I doubt it.’

The conference room was sparsely furnished, nothing but an oval table, tubular chairs and institutional cream walls. They took their seats around the table, and a few minutes later Chief Constable Frank Sampson — soon, it was whispered, to be Sir Frank Sampson — did indeed arrive. When he was followed shortly by the new police and crime commissioner, Margaret Bingham, Banks knew that something important must be brewing.

But the last person to arrive, a minute or so after everyone else, was the biggest surprise of all.

Dirty Dick Burgess was now some sort of deputy director or special agent at the National Crime Agency. More commonly known as the British FBI, the NCA dealt mostly with organised crime and border security, but it also worked against cyber crime and the sexual exploitation and abuse of children and young people. Burgess flipped Banks a wink before sitting down. Even he was wearing a suit and a crisp white shirt instead of his trademark scuffed leather jacket, though he could have done with a shave and a haircut, and he had foregone the tie completely. Clearly the British FBI didn’t bother dressing up for a visit to the provinces.

There were eight people seated around the table when the chief constable opened proceedings by introducing them all to one another. One of the people Banks didn’t know, by either name or sight, was the lawyer from the Crown Prosecution Service. Her name was Janine Francis, and she was not one of the CPS lawyers that he usually dealt with. The eighth person, still only vaguely familiar to Banks, was the county force’s new media liaison officer, Adrian Moss, an ex-advertising agency up-and-comer and political spin doctor with a flowered tie, fresh-scrubbed youthful appearance and a breezy, confident manner. A motley crew, indeed, Banks thought, as he tried to imagine why they might all have been brought together under one roof. It had to be something big.

‘I know some of you must be wondering what all this is about,’ said the chief constable, ‘so I’ll make it simple and get straight to the point. I assume you’re all familiar with Operation Yewtree and its investigations into sexual abuse, predominantly against children and primarily by media personalities? In the wake of the Jimmy Savile business and the successful convictions of Rolf Harris, Gary Glitter, Dave Lee Travis and Max Clifford, among others, I’m sure you can imagine that a lot of past victims have been encouraged to come into the open over the matter of historical sexual abuse.’

Historical abuse . The words brought about an immediate sinking feeling in Banks’s gut. A function of the political correctness of the times, historical abuse investigations were intended to right the wrongs of the past and to send the message that no matter how many years had gone by, if enough people cried foul, someone would be sent off. They were also a way of appeasing the victims of such crimes, of giving them a voice some of them had been seeking for years, and perhaps even ‘closure’, that much overused word, both things of which Banks approved in principle. In practice, however, it often turned out to be a different matter, a witch hunt where victims were often disappointed, and the reputations of innocent people sometimes went down in tatters. No detective in his right mind wanted to be part of a historical abuse investigation. Banks checked the faces of the others. Their expressions gave away nothing. Was he the only one who thought this way? Did it show?

‘I’d like to think we’ve all learned a thing or two from the way these incidents have been handled over the past couple of years,’ the CC went on, ‘and one of the things we should have learned by now is to keep things close to our chests. I ask you all not to speak of what’s said in here to anyone outside this office. Not even to your colleagues. Adrian.’

Moss glanced from face to face. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘No doubt you all know there’s no way we can keep this from the media for ever. They’ll get hold of it eventually, if they haven’t already. It’s my job to make sure that nothing gets said to them by anyone involved unless it goes through me first. Am I clear?’

He was obviously enjoying his temporary power over such an eminent gathering, Banks could tell from the triumphant expression on his face and the undertones of evangelistic delivery in his speech. And Banks didn’t even know what ‘this’ was yet.

‘Mistakes have been made in the past,’ Moss went on. ‘That business with the BBC cameras in position to film the raid on Cliff Richard’s home before Sir Cliff knew about the search himself, for example — and we don’t want any of that sort of behaviour dogging our footsteps. As you know, the investigation into Sir Cliff was dropped, and Paul Gambaccini had some harsh words to say about the way he was treated by the police. We’ve ended up with egg on our faces often enough, and we have to make sure that doesn’t happen this time. When the media do come knocking, as they will, we want everything calm and by the book. Nothing they can get between their teeth and run with. Naturally, celebrities are of interest to them, and celebrity misdeeds are manna for them. We not only have to prosecute this, we need to be seen to prosecute it. It won’t take them long to gets their nibs sharpened. I can tell you now, there’s a media shit storm due in the near future. My job, ladies and gentlemen, is to manage the flow of information, and to do that I will need the cooperation of all of you. Everything goes through the press office. Is that clear?’ He had a sheen of sweat on his forehead as he scanned the room. Most of those present beamed back at him. Moss was one of the chief constable’s and the police commissioner’s golden boys. Now that the brass seemed far more concerned with publicity and image, people like him were more important to them than detectives, Banks thought. Burgess was the only one to appear unimpressed, the beginnings of that characteristic cynical, seen-it-all smile appearing in the twist of his lips.

‘Thank you, Adrian,’ said the chief constable. ‘Now we all know where we stand, let’s get down to brass tacks. You are all here because from now on you’re going to be working together in one capacity or another on the same case. Assistant Chief Constable McLaughlin will enlighten you.’

Red Ron cleared his throat and shuffled his papers. ‘You’re here because we’re going to be conducting an investigation into Danny Caxton,’ he said, pausing for a moment to let the name sink in.

Danny Caxton , thought Banks. Shit . Celebrity, personality, presenter before presenters had even been invented. Household name. The Man with the Big Smile . Caxton had started his career in the late fifties with a few pop hits. He wasn’t a rock and roller, more of a crooner, a part of the Jim Reeves, Val Doonican and Matt Monroe crowd. Perhaps the girls didn’t scream at him the same way they did for Elvis or the Beatles, but plenty drooled over him as their parents had drooled over Johnnie Ray or Frank Sinatra. From what Banks could remember, Caxton obviously had good business sense and he must have realised early on that a career in pop balladry doesn’t last for ever. In the early sixties, he started to diversify. He had always had good comic timing and a knack for impersonating famous people, in addition to having the personality of an affable host. He compered variety shows, both live around the country and on television, cut the tapes at supermarket openings, judged beauty contests and quickly became the regular host of a popular talent-spotting programme called Do Your Own Thing! which lasted well into the late eighties. That was his catchphrase, too: ‘Do your own thing.’ Spoken with a tongue-in-cheek knowingness that tipped a wink towards its hippie origins. Even during the sixties and seventies he had the occasional novelty hit record, and he made a couple of dreadful swinging sixties films when he was already too old and square for such roles. He would have known Jimmy Savile, Banks realised. They were of the same generation. Caxton went from strength to strength: summer seasons, Christmas pantomimes, a successful West End musical comedy. He had married a pop singer at some point, Banks remembered, and there had been an acrimonious and public divorce not long after. His career had slowed down in the early nineties, but he still appeared occasionally as a guest on chat shows and had even hosted the odd Christmas variety special in the noughties.